This post starts with an apology to you.
Fans of the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons have likely already read of the death of the voice of Yakky Doodle, Jimmy Weldon, at the age of 99, and may wonder why I have not talked about it yet. I’m writing this post just now because I have spent the day dealing with a very unexpected matter in which police were involved (I am fine) so it has taken up my time.
I never had the chance to speak with Mr. Weldon, but all accounts show he was a kind man who enjoyed entertaining and enjoyed life.
Long-time readers will know of my distaste for Yakky. He began life at MGM, when Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were looking for third characters to play off Tom and Jerry.
The duck wallowed in self-pity, beginning with Little Quacker (released in early 1950). Bill and Joe liked him and cast him in eight cartoons. When the MGM studio closed in 1957, the two created H-B Enterprises with director George Sidney. The Huckleberry Hound Show was being developed the following year, and secondary characters (capable of being marketed) were in need. Barbera came up with a similar duck and put him in two Yogi Bear cartoons (one where he foiled that noble, intelligent hunting dog, Yowp). The following year, he appeared opposite Pixie & Dixie/Mr. Jinks, Snooper & Blabber and in three cartoons with Augie Doggie.
Hanna-Barbera signed a deal in fall 1960 to develop a show around Yogi Bear, and one segment was handed over to the duck, who was re-designed and given a new name (H-B marketing had been calling him “Bitty Buddy”). Starting at MGM, the duck was voiced by nightclub comedian Red Coffey, and there is at least one between-the-cartoons short where Coffey voices Yakky. But Coffey, for whatever reason, couldn’t take on the role permanently, so Weldon was hired by Barbera in what Weldon called “the most important thing that ever happened to my career.” He was working on television in Fresno and used to fly to Hanna-Barbera for voice sessions. In his own plane!
Yakky benefited from several things, not the least of which was Weldon’s performances coupled with writer Mike Maltese’s downplaying of the “poor, poor me” aspect of the character. Weldon’s Yakky was generally cheerful, optimistic and a dedicated friend. These characteristics seem to describe Weldon himself. He made a career later in life as a motivational speaker. This story from the Newhall Signal of Feb. 3, 1992 gives you a bit of insight into Jimmy Weldon.
Weldon energizes seniors’ motivation
By ANDREA MORET
Signal staff writer
NEWHALL — With a flashy smile and a high-energy presentation style, Jimmy Weldon appeared before a group of about 50 seniors last Tuesday like a colorized version of an old black-and-white television favorite.
A motivator, speaker, comedian and actor, Weldon, 68, is perhaps best known for the numerous children's shows of the 1950s he starred in with his duck mascot, Webster Webfoot. But Tuesday, he brought a message of motivation to the audience assembled in the multipurpose room of the Santa Clarita Valley Senior Center.
Frequently addressing the crowd by name and gesticulating his every word, the speaker imbued the 55-plus set with confidence and encouragement in a stirring, often funny, presentation.
"You are the most important person on this earth," he told the seniors. "It's up to us to give the young people today something to live for."
To Weldon, there is no such thing as retirement. Only what "I used to do and this is what I do now." There is also no such thing as time, only spending time and spending it wisely.Experience is "just what a guy gets when he no longer needs it"—a lesson well-learned after a youth accident with a lawn mower severed part of his finger.
Weldon spoke of his life experiences from Oklahoma radio show personality to television sitcom star, frequently interjecting adages of heartfelt advice.
"This computer," he said, pointing to his head, "works like the land. I tell young people be careful what you plant up here because it's going to come back to you."
Weldon knew at the age of 7 he would end up in Hollywood one day. It was the day he saw his first motion picture, "Ten Nights in a Bar Room."
A scruffy youth from Chickasha, Okla., he didn't have any special talent other than a voice that he practiced and practiced until he sounded like Donald Duck. Nevertheless, he was determined that voice would buy his ticket to movies.
His brothers laughed at him and his seventh-grade teacher even sent him to the corner when he answered her in "duck voice."
But he persisted, and his efforts paid off when Hollywood started buying into his talent. Eventually, the voice incarnated into Webster Webfoot, a blue-capped, enormous-eyed, yellow-billed duck.
He said he was once asked to speak before a crowd of doctors by a physician intrigued by the idea of a man making a living as a "duck."
Weldon explains in his memoirs, "Go Get 'Em Tiger," how he pulled Webster out of his suitcase and told the 150 doctors and their wives, "this is the little guy I hope will take me to Hollywood one day."
Indeed it did. Fifty years later, Weldon once again pulled his mascot out of that suitcase before the Santa Clarita seniors, but this time with a few memories to share of his experiences in radio, television and movies.
The Webster Webfoot Show, the longest running television show in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, launched a career that would send him to Los Angeles, New York, Fresno and back to Los Angeles.
His career spanned 41 years, taking him to the British Broadcasting Corp., the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the NBC network show, "Funny Boners."
The producers of the hit television show, "Yogi Bear," fashioned Yogi's sidekick, "Yakky Doodle," after Webster Webfoot.
But it wasn't the movie and television show credits, the introductions to famous people nor the rounds of golf with celebrities that formed the message he has since taken on the road. It was the lessons learned from the underlying factors that helped motivate him along his career journey, he said.
In large letters, Weldon scrawled the word "motivation" on a blackboard, inserting a slash between the “v” and “a” and adding a “c” to the latter part of the word to form "action."
Goals are not enough to realize your dreams, Weldon said. A goal must be followed by a plan, a desire, confidence, determination and a positive attitude.
As parents and grandparents, he told the seniors, "you can plant the seed with young people" and find new purpose in your own lives.
"Don't lose the enthusiasm," he implored. "We're the same ones we were when we were little. We're just a little older."
As for the “Donald Duck” aspect of his voice, Weldon amusingly recounted to interviewer Stu Shostak that Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald, wasn’t happy about it. (Nash never worked for Hanna-Barbera, no matter what the internet may say). He said he and the other actors in each Yakky cartoon worked together in a studio with Barbera directing on the other side of the glass in the control room, gesturing how he wanted the lines read, and reacting whether they were voiced the way he wanted.
Weldon would have turned 100 on September 23rd. His words about living, live on. And, here and there, so do Yakky’s cartoons where he gets the better of Alfie Gator and Fibber Fox, yells for Chopper, and screeches an off-key version of "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay."
Note: As someone has asked me this, the last pre-1961 Hanna-Barbera actor who is still alive is Elliot Field, who was Blabber Mouse and some incidental characters in the first few episodes of the Quick Draw McGraw show.